Re: Shell Grammar man page

[Ángel]

On 2021-02-26 at 00:45 +0100, Mike Jonkmans wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 11:15:36PM +0100, Ángel wrote:
> > I really doubt so. I expect they would teach Dutch¹ grammar, but that's
> > quite different than formal grammars such as those of yacc.
> > Maybe you might use that in the teaching of a constructed language like
> > Esperanto, but I don't think that would be a good approach.
> 
> Those grammars weren't all that different from yacc's grammar.
> Just simpler and incomplete.
> 
> Minimal example:
> A Sentence can be "Pronoun Verb." or "Verb Pronoun?"
> Pronoun can be "I" or "You" etc.
> Verb would be "eat" or "walk".
> 
> Sometimes you needed to 'parse' sentences in order to spell them
> correctly.

TEchnically yes. A linguist will happily study that one. Also, you
could have someone used to yacc understanding and using your simplified
grammar. The other way around? Based on the average grammar given on
primary school? I don't think so.



> > I expect people somewhat familiar with grammar constructs would rather
> > come from descriptions of commands or technical documentation if not
> > directly from a Linguistic, Mathematics or Computer Engineering
> > background.
> > Plus, the need to grasp concepts of variables and recursion must not be
> > undersestimated.
> 
> It is always difficult to estimate the knowledge of your (reading)
> public.

Heh, Sure. These are all unscientific estimations.




> > ¹ Or English, French, German… 
> That is secondary school stuff (for the Dutch).

I was trying to cover people which had their primary school on
different languages (and yes, it was a very limited, non-exhaustive 
list)


> As I recall there was less to do with grammar in those foreign
> languages.

Interesting. I wonder if that was because their grammar are simpler or
just because it wasn't as present in the syllabus.
I wouldn't think French grammar to be simpler than English one, for
instance. Can't give an opinion on your language though, it's all Dutch
to me :-)

Best
Ángel